Indigenous Voices You Should Be Reading

1. There There by Tommy Orange (Cheyenne & Arapaho) — A powerful, polyphonic novel following twelve Native characters living in Oakland as their stories converge at a powwow.

2. Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot (Seabird Island Band) — A poetic memoir about trauma, mental illness, motherhood, and reclaiming identity through language and survival.

3. The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) — Based on her grandfather’s activism, this novel explores Native life, politics, and resistance in 1950s North Dakota.

4. A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt (Driftpile Cree Nation) — A semi-autobiographical novel about queerness, small-town life, and the radical act of storytelling as self-reclamation.

5. Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger (Lipan Apache) — A genre-blending novel about a teenage girl who can raise the dead and uses her gifts to solve her cousin’s murder.

6. Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq (Inuk) — A genre-defying blend of prose, poetry, myth, and memoir that explores girlhood, violence, and the Arctic landscape.

7. Poet Warrior by Joy Harjo (Muscogee/Creek Nation) — The former U.S. Poet Laureate’s memoir mixes poetry and storytelling in a reflection on music, spirituality, and ancestral strength.

8. Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice (Anishinaabe) — In a chilling post-apocalyptic scenario, an isolated Northern Anishinaabe community must navigate survival, tradition, and the return of colonial violence.

9. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Citizen Potawatomi Nation) — This beautiful work explores our relationship with the natural world. It reflects on gratitude, reciprocity, and how to live in harmony with the earth.